


Kids

by Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle)



Series: Five Ways Lee Adama Never Met Laura Roslin [4]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-17
Updated: 2006-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27860877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Lasalle/pseuds/Jo%20Lasalle
Summary: Lee goes to a political rally, and it doesn't quite go as planned.(Part of a number of stories re-uploaded for archival purposes. It's been over 15 years, and so any tagging or summaries are going to be extremely bare-bones! I tried to time a bulk upload so nobody got 10 separate notifications, but if I did accidentally spam people, my apologies!)
Relationships: Lee "Apollo" Adama/Laura Roslin
Series: Five Ways Lee Adama Never Met Laura Roslin [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2039657





	Kids

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of a "Five Ways" series - five AU first meetings between Laura Roslin and Lee Adama. 
> 
> Re-uploaded for archival purposes. It's been over 15 years, and so any tagging or summaries are going to be extremely bare-bones.

The speeches weren't quite what he'd expected. Conviction and indignation were all well and good, but everyone here was probably on board with the importance of free of speech, so halfway through the third speaker's address Lee began to wonder why they had to keep going on and on about it.

His eyes were starting to hurt from squinting up at the podium. The day had started out warm and got warmer, the sky perfectly cloudless, a bright background to the grime-darkened brown stone of the school building. It was a run-down place, a little off the city centre but central enough to host a rally like this, and it was public property.

Lee thought the man's description of a parole hearing sounded wrong, but maybe he'd missed something when he'd tuned out for a second. Somehow he'd thought this would be more exciting. But he did his best to keep his attention on the stage, because he'd taken too much ridicule for coming here from his roommates to not stay interested, and because the girl with the flyers was still throwing him inquisitorial glances whenever he let his eyes wander.

They'd had a friendly chat at the gate when he'd arrived, about half an hour early and with no real clue about how this worked. She'd told him about the different interest groups involved in the event, which explained the fact that about a third of the people at the back of the podium wore suits when everybody else was dressed quite casually. She was cute, too, and she'd given him tips on what he really shouldn't miss while he was at Caprica City College, but then she'd looked at him funny when he'd mentioned his stay was part of his officer training.

It wasn't the best weather for standing in a crowd through the midday hours. His head felt hot, and even if he wasn't exactly standing shoulder to shoulder with the people around him, it was a pretty busy event. Between him and the podium were maybe seven, eight rows of people, and clusters had formed at the corners of the stage. The couple in front of him had brought a small child and a baby, and somewhere they'd found ice cream. He ought to have brought sunglasses, as well as something to drink; he didn't want to squeeze his way through the audience while someone was talking, and the soda stand was right beside the folks with the banners and signs, who were looking a little too intense for Lee's comfort.

There'd been hassle over there earlier, though muted by the heat and general inertia; Lee had watched it unfold with a guilty fascination. Eventually they'd got to keep their _'Free Tom Zarek'_ banner, which hung there somewhat wilted now, but the organising committee had insisted they take down the one calling President Micah a fascist.

The papers had been full of the impending first parole hearing, ten years after the sentence, opinions ranging from vitriolic to openly supportive. Naturally, people here tended to be on the support side, but after everything he'd read, Lee had hoped for a bit more nuance and variety of views. At times it sounded almost as if Zarek had been imprisoned for wearing an offending necktie.

He'd felt daring coming here, full of excitement at involving himself in an important debate, and maybe finding some agreement when he was used to being on his own with his opinion. By now he almost felt silly, with a side order of disappointed, and in any case it was way too hot.

Sluggish applause rose up around him, and the tall guy next to Lee whooped in approval, the noise condensed and intensified by the way the school framed the square on all four sides, broken up only by the gate. Lee hesitantly clapped along and tried to figure out where he'd drifted off. But the speaker, who wore slacks and a purple t-shirt, was done, acknowledging the applause with a quick wave before he retreated to the chairs at the back of the podium where the various spokespeople were sitting, waiting their turn. The level of chatter rose as one of the helpers came on stage to readjust the microphone.

"Hey, you got a light?" the guy on Lee's left asked him, twiddling a cigarette between two fingers. His face was red from the heat, which gave Lee some idea of what he himself must look like. The guy's t-shirt read _Pro-Sagittaron_ in bright yellow letters on green fabric.

"Sorry," Lee said with an apologetic look, wondering if there was such a thing as 'Anti-Sagittaron'.

The moderator was back on the podium, announcing someone from the teacher's union, one of the more conventional groups in the organising coalition.

"No problem," his neighbour shrugged with a friendly grin, then tapped a woman in the row in front of them on the shoulder.

The lady from the teacher's union was one of the suit people, but she'd taken off her jacket either in concession to the heat or to the general atmosphere, her white blouse almost too bright in the sunlight. Her opening smile wasn't entirely comfortable, but she had a determined look about her when she launched into her address.

She started with free speech.

Wriggling his toes in overheated boots, Lee admitted that he should have worn sandals. Or taken Soren up on her offer to join her and a few others at the waterfront, to catch a breeze. But he'd thought he needed a break, fed up as he was with the constant chest-beating.

Usually he got on fine with the other cadets, but the unfamiliar surroundings seemed to bring out a greater need for territorial bullshitting. Lee was seeing more strutting and posturing in the college classrooms and the student accommodation they'd been moved into than he'd seen in flight school, and it took something to out-strut baby pilots. The class discussions were a let-down, too, nothing they'd discussed so far resembling any dilemma they might encounter in the real world.

Growing noise from the audience made him snap back in and search the podium.

"... of violent acts." The woman's face was flushed, which might as well have been due to the heat as to nerves, but she did look startled, glancing at the crowd. The noise wasn't friendly.

"Unless he distances himself from acts of violence that supposedly support his cause, there can be no serious dialog."

It was different from what he'd heard here so far, demanding concessions from both sides. Different enough to make him straighten up, focus. As she went on, Lee thought her emphasis on who had to move first towards a compromise let the system off lightly; she made him uncomfortable with her deliberate use of the word 'crime', which he couldn't really disagree with but suspected would not go over well with the crowd. But then she got to prisoners' rights and he found himself nodding.

He looked around and didn't find the sentiment reflected on the faces around him. It bewildered him that she'd lost them so quickly, when she was very reasonable and not even that far off the apparent consensus. But while he couldn't point to anything obvious besides increased mutterings, something had changed, the sluggish heaviness of earlier replaced by a different kind of pressure.

She'd noticed, too; Lee could tell from the nervous twist of her hand in the air, like a presentation technique tried out and abandoned halfway. People were paying attention, and when she demanded the right of any prisoner, terrorist or no, to be able to express their view within reason, there was low talk but no clapping.

Weirder still, the guy with the cigarette put one hand around his mouth and booed loudly, to the only speech Lee thought was trying for a balanced view. "Hey, come on, man, let her talk," he protested, earning an incredulous stare in response.

"But no discussion," she was saying, fiddling at the side of her neck for hair strands that were stuck to her skin, "can take place before an acknowledgement of the mistakes that were made and an apology to those who were hurt or lost--"

That was as far as she got before an enraged growl rose from the audience and something went flying. Lee saw her flinch back from the lectern, hit by _something_ , before a shuffle went through the crowd and he got shoved into the row in front of him. He remained standing, anxious not to push over the woman who had swooped up her kid, but the guy next to him went down, yelping when someone tread on his hand.

Lee felt his heart hammering as he tried to sort out what to do and how to calm people down while there was yelling all over the place and no way to tell where the shoving and stumbling originated, and he grunted when someone's elbow hit him in the ribs. The orders and insults hurled this way and that were impossible to understand, and he didn't know whether to push against the moving people or whether that would make it worse. It was no shooting, that much he was sure of; if there were guns they'd have had a full-fledged panic.

Then he heard sirens; pretty damn fast, and he'd have been relieved if not for the fact that he could have done without getting caught up in an event that required police intervention. But the pressure started to ease around the same time, the push from behind fading as the crowd seemed to fizzle out at the edges.

He took a breath, rubbing at the bruise under his damp t-shirt, stunned by how fast that had come and gone. Well, the yelling continued, and somewhere to his left the banner people were swinging their signs at three stewards. It really wasn't how he'd imagined his day would go.

The official representatives had gathered behind the podium, in different states of distress, while families and individuals started heading for the gate.

He could see the policemen getting out of the cars, and bit his lip. More reason to wish for some clue how these things normally went; the police presence didn't seem to bother all those clusters of people shouting at each other, but he really didn't need to get himself arrested just for being here, for frak's sake, and not only because his father would blow a fuse.

He took in the general mess, the arguing groups and the wings of the school building. According to the flyer girl, the doors to the school corridors were open so that the bathrooms could be used; maybe he could find another exit.

He headed away from the gate across dirty concrete, bypassing a heated argument between the moderator and three people in their late teens who were adamant about their right to protest. There were doors at the side of the podium, and two stewards looked at him suspiciously but then either found him harmless or didn't feel like risking a confrontation, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he found the left side of the double door unlocked.

Marginally cooler, the building looked even more run-down on the inside, the heat bringing out a funny smell of mouldy wood and old curtains even though the corridor was as bare as it got. The odd faded-looking drawing hung between locked classroom doors. In one place there was merely an empty frame.

Apparently he hadn't been the only one trying to leave without getting caught up in any skirmishes; to his right, a group of four was heading away from him towards where he guessed the main entrance would be. At least he hoped that they were on their way out and not looking for things to block the gate with. In any case, he'd try the other direction first.

He walked to the left end of the corridor and turned the corner, where he passed the bathrooms and the last two doors before he jogged up the few steps to the side entrance.

Which was locked. He checked both wings, then scowled at the emergency exit sign for good measure. Okay, the other way then. If it hadn't been barricaded in the meantime. Oh, he just should have stayed home.

He'd gone three steps when he heard the door he'd come in open, the sounds of the yard flowing into the empty corridor.

"No, I'm _fine_ ," came a snappy voice on top of the buzz, and then the closing door blocked the racket again. A single pair of heels clicked on the floor tiles, announcing fast and hard steps.

Of all the people to round the corner, stopping dead when she saw him standing there, it had to be the poor woman from the teacher's union.

Who didn't actually look all that poor; slightly harassed, maybe, but not in any way intimidated by his presence. She was holding her jacket in one hand, propping the other up on her hip now, and the glare she gave him instantly killed off any effort to formulate some reassurance that he wasn't one of those whackos.

Her cheeks were an uneven red, and she had a yellow stain on her blouse beneath her left shoulder, her hair sticking together weirdly on one side. A few small pieces of white were tangled up in it.

"Well?" She startled him with the question, all sarcastic expectation and pissed-off glower. "Do _you_ have a statement to make, too?"

Put on the spot, Lee was drawing a blank. Like standing in front of the class and not knowing the answer, which he didn't have much experience with. "You have egg in your hair." And going with the first thing that came to mind probably wasn't the solution.

He had that confirmed by the disbelieving look on her face. "I noticed."

"I'm sorry that happened," he said lamely. "Really." Oh gods.

But apparently she decided to let him off the hook at that point, her scolding posture softening into something far too graceful for someone dotted with foodstuff. With a last mild look of scepticism, she turned to the door with the ladies sign.

"I was listening to you." He wasn't sure why it was important she know this, but it bothered him, the idea that she'd go on thinking he was one of those... egg-throwers. He hadn't come here to be like that. "I'm really sorry it turned so ugly." Her hand already on the door knob, she stopped to look at him over her shoulder. "If there's anything I can do..."

There were other spots on the white of her blouse, but the egg stain was the one most noticeable. Such assholes. He'd have liked to hear her go on.

Regarding him, she lost of some her annoyance, the tilt of her head deliberating and then decisive. She turned and opened the bathroom door. "Come with me."His eyes went to the sign on the door, and he hesitated just long enough for her to roll her eyes. "You wanted to help me? You can help me. First, hold this." She thrust her jacket at him and went inside, and Lee could either follow or stand here like an idiot, so he followed.

It didn't smell any worse than the hallway, but the dark green tiling was even gloomier. The high windows had been taped over with see-through fantasy animals at some point that now looked like flaking animal corpses.

"Great," she muttered, examining the sink. The mirror at least was intact, and the light worked when Lee found the switch, and she went on to pluck the remaining eggshell pieces out of her hair.

"I'll just hold this," Lee said, staying close to the door. He didn't want to ask what exactly she expected him to do, twisting the jacket in his hand and then remembering that he probably wasn't supposed to wrinkle it quite like this, so he draped it over his arm.

"No, come here." She was turning on the water, holding one hand under it. Lee was almost surprised it ran clear. "I've got to get this stuff out of my hair before I go anywhere else." That made sense. "I'd rather not touch too much of that, though," she went on with a wary look at the sink. "And I can't very well see the back of my head."

Stepping closer, Lee glanced into the basin. The drain looked vaguely slimy. Okay, fair point.

Still the oddness of the moment had him kind of frozen, and it took an impatient look from her that he decided to stop floundering and start being helpful. "Right. Hang on." He slung her jacket over his shoulder, fairly certain she wouldn't want him to hang it up anywhere in here, and stuck his hands under the water. It was predictably cold and stayed that way as much as he turned the handle, and he looked at her and... felt really, really stupid.

Her smile was unexpected, her eyes crinkling at the corners, but before he had time to respond she pulled her hair together and leaned forward, keeping a safe distance between her body and the edge of the sink. "Try not to get it all dripping wet?"

Odd indeed, taking hold of her hair like this. "Okay," he said, trying to sound as if women he'd just met asked him to do this all the time.

First he concentrated on separating the congealed mess on the side and back from the improvised ponytail, then passed the thicker hank back into her waiting hand. "Here, you take this." She did as asked, and said nothing when Lee's wet fingers caught on a few single hairs, which had to pull. "Sorry."

"That's all right."

It turned finer under the water, softer, and he had to be careful to keep the long strands from slipping through his fingers and trailing the suspect sink.

A few moments in he feared he was spreading the egg around more than he was washing it out. "Hang on," he said again, trying to gather everything in one hand. "Let me get some soap."

A jerk of her head tugged against his grip; Lee found that a little embarrassing. "For my _hair_?"

He could see enough of her profile to recognise disbelief, and he stared down at her at a loss. "There's... egg in it."

Her sigh was pure exasperation, and she closed her eyes. "Oh, all right."

The lever of the soap dispenser produced two faint creaks, but no soap. Right. "Never mind that," Lee mumbled. If at least they had warm water. Couldn't be comfortable for her, either, even as he tried to keep the cold water from touching her skin.

"So," she said after a moment, her voice reflecting weirdly off the sink, "what were you doing here?"

What a good question. It made him wince to think about it, but eventually he took a deep breath. "I read his book."

"How subversive of you."

"I think he's got some points," he said defensively, because, well, he did, and if he remembered correctly so did she.

"Yet here you are, helping the establishment wash off the protest. Quite the dilemma."

"Hey!" He stopped the rinsing momentarily, but of course his indignant look was wasted on the back of her head. But the damn egg thing wasn't his fault. "I didn't _do_ anything, you know."

She said nothing in reply, the running water the only sound for a while. But the sarcasm was gone when she asked, "So are we there yet?"

Nodding even though she wouldn't see, he gave the ends a last check. "That should be... it. Okay, I think I got all of it." Carefully, he tried to squeeze out the water with one hand. "Okay, done."

She straightened up slowly, and he went with her until she took the wet clump of hair back into her own hand.

"I really liked your speech." Except for the beginning, maybe. "I'd have liked to hear more of it." He was serious.

For a second he thought she'd make a joke, but she didn't. "Obviously I misjudged the venue a little," she said, showing him a self-deprecating half-smile. "And the devotion of his fans." A trickle of water ran down the side of her neck and over her collarbone, darkening the fabric where it got soaked up by her blouse.

Lee looked around for paper towels, then dried his hands on his trousers. "You think he's got a point, too. Or you wouldn't have been here," he said.

"No," she countered, wringing out her hair with much more force than Lee had dared to use. "I think he's a self-important, deluded louse." Then she looked at him evenly. "But I think maybe we can do better than locking him up for it for the rest of his life." With a critical frown, she examined her reflection. "I guess that'll teach me."

"It looks..." Well, maybe not. She did look a mess, sort of. There was no hiding the stain on her blouse, and the half-wet tangles on one side of her head were... peculiar, yes, but not really unflattering, looking as soft and heavy as they'd felt.

"Yes?" she asked, arching her eyebrows.

"Better than before?"

She wanted to say something to make him squirm, he could tell, but then she just laughed. Still shaking her head, she went to one of the stalls for some toilet paper, which she then held under the water.

It occurred to Lee that he probably ought to go, seeing as he was done helping and this was still a ladies' bathroom.

She gave him a sideways smile, brief and almost reluctant. "Why were you skulking around in here?" she asked, dabbing at the stain.

Funny; he'd washed a stranger's hair and was now watching her clean up, and despite the pervading sense of weirdness he couldn't really say he felt out of place. Ignoring the grime, he leaned his hip against the edge of the sink. "I was trying not to get arrested," he admitted. That earned him an amused glance, and he didn't mind. "See? Not all that subversive."

She almost looked a little contrite.

"I'm in officer training," he explained, feeling strange when he remembered the reaction of the last girl he'd told this. "And believe me, even if it didn't get me in trouble, I'd never live it down."

She gave him a mock-serious expression as she pushed her hair back over her shoulders, leaving her neck bare. "Can't have that." Then she dropped the soggy toilet paper, sighed at the still-prominent yellow spot, and shook her head in resignation. He thought of telling her that he thought she looked quite all right, but she saved him from making a fool of himself. "You're on leave?"

He shook his head. "We're at the City College for a month. Using it while it's empty. Civics class. Sensitivity stuff."

"I used to teach there." She paused and looked him over, her thoughtful expression framed by damp and dishevelled curls. "Years ago," she added pointedly.

Lee smiled. "I bet they didn't throw things at you." She blinked, and when she looked away it almost seemed flustered. He had a thought of her teaching that class and how it would probably be far less boring, and it made him flush a little. "I wouldn't."

She fussed at the collar of her blouse before she looked back at him, her face not as neutral as Lee was sure she hoped. "That's nice."

He waited, saying nothing as the safest course of action, a sense of anticipation simmering in his stomach.

"Well, you'll be safe. From what I could tell, the police were just making sure this thing was dispersed in order. And I can vouch for your innocence if you need me to."

That-- probably deserved comment, and she saw it too. "Wait," she cut him off preemtively, holding up one hand, a smile tugging at her mouth. "That didn't come out right."

"I should hope not." Not as suave as he could have been because he had to grin, too, but that was okay. She was running a hand through her thick, messy hair now, a little off balance but comfortable enough to share the joke with him, comfortable enough to still be here with him in the first place; certainly a nice improvement from having his head ripped off in the hallway. Had to be, given that he had made no move to leave, either.

Finally he remembered the jacket; he shrugged it off, holding it out to her with an apologetic nod. She smiled again as she accepted it, either reminded of dragging him in here or of the disaster outside, and Lee watched her sling it over her shoulder and give him a funny how-does-that-look expression, and he breathed in deep and took a leap. "Are you busy just now?"

"Busy?" she repeated, but Lee didn't think she was really confused.

"I thought..." No, not smooth at all, and he found he didn't care so much. Fit the day's pattern, anyway. "I'd like to buy you a drink." And no squirming; that was good. "We could talk some more about freedom of speech somewhere that's not a school bathroom."

And he'd been sure she'd seen that coming, but she seemed stunned for a second anyway. "I got pelted with food," she pointed out, traces of disbelief and amusement still remaining.

Lee raised one shoulder, absurdly pleased that the state of her wardrobe seemed her main concern. "Battle scars? Wear them proudly?" Okay, that one was a bit sad, but she didn't seem to mind if the contemplative look she gave him was any indication.

"You're very young," she stated eventually, very poised, very calm.

"Maybe," he conceded. "I'm not the one who got up on a stage and told a bunch of Tom Zarek fans that he should apologise, though." He kept a straight face long enough for it to sink in, and then she turned her head, a failed effort at hiding her smile. Point taken, it said.

She looked into the mirror again, and then at him, and then she gave him another smile, more open and really very lovely. "If I get kicked out anywhere," she warned him, "I'll blame you."

Not a threat to take lightly. He walked over to the door, smiling back as he held it open for her. "I'll risk it."


End file.
